Rest in Pieces?
by ICanSeeYourFace
Summary: Oneshot sequel to "Everything's gonna be okey". Rory finds herself in Philadelphia. Jess told her to come over to Truncheon and say "hi". What happens when she does?


**A/N**: A while ago, I published a oneshot called "Everything's gonna be okey", and though I intended for it to be what it was, case closed, people started asking me for a sequel. Well, inspiration conked me in the head, what was I to do? It was not necessarily inspiration for the story I wanted, but hey, I take what I can get. My internet has been/is more or less down, so I haven't been able to check the timetable for the campaigntrail, so I'm making up my own itinerary.

**Disclaimer**: I, the author of this story, do not own any of the characthers associated with Gilmore Girls. That honor belongs to the wonderful Amy Sherman-Palladino. I do not, for that matter either, own any of the lyrics mentioned in this piece. They belong to whoever wrote these kick-ass songs. I have no intention of making any money on this (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm losing money over it...).

* * *

_Rest in Pieces?_

She hadn't even noticed the scenery change. Not until she woke up from her daydreaming-reverie (which mostly consisted of her drinking a huge cup of coffee at Luke's with her mom) she noticed that they weren't exactly in Kansas anymore. Kansas had been bright, even at this time of year, but here, wherever 'here' was, it was grey, dingy… impersonal. Rory was sitting at the front of the bus, not because she was queasy, but frankly, because she couldn't take much more of Rob (a young, feisty reporter from Arkansas) and his "Knock, knock"-jokes. The radio was on, and through the static a rocksong found its way to Rory's ears:

_Would you find it in your heart  
__To make this go away  
__And let me rest in pieces?_

Involuntarily (at least that's what she told herself), Jess popped up in her mind. She had been so successful in not letting him intrude on her thoughts so far during the campaign, but now he was there, nagging at her attention, his smile washing away any other thoughts she had going. It all came back to her. Her graduationparty in Stars Hollow. Hemingway, hug, hope…

"_Come over to Truncheon and say hi."_

Hi was easy. It was whatever that would come next that she feared. Rory remembered all too well the words she had whispered to the empty street when Jess had turned the corner. She couldn't say that to him, it would bring them back to the way they were. To the pieces of themselves that were still scattered in a minefield whenever they were around each other. Could either of them ever make it go away? She sighed, and picked up her Sidekick from her purse to check what was on the agenda for today. The name of the town that met her eyes made her scoff silently. Of course. The irony of life. Philadelphia.

* * *

Over in Philly, Jess was manning the counter at Truncheon, nervously eyeing the clock. He had been keeping his eyes on her. Not her, in person, but the campaigntrail. He traced her journey on a map he had found, reading every word Rory wrote for the online paper, imagining her sitting on some godforsaken bus racing across the country. Was she reading the book he had given her? He knew she would come to Philly today, and he was hoping she would keep true to the promise she had given him that night when he went to Stars Hollow with the Hemingway-book. This time they would be able to have a conversation that wasn't tainted by the blonde dick from Yale or goodbyes, or lack thereof. This time there was… well, Jess was hoping there would be time. Not that there hadn't been time last time. He had been planning on saying he couldn't stay long, in case Logan would have been there, but even after she had told him Logan was out of her life period, he still told her he had to go when she asked him to join the crazy festivities. It hadn't been the time for a surprise visit from Jess Mariano, (ex-)town hoodlum.

Four hours later, he was restless, even more so than before. He was drumming his fingers against the counter, managing to make Matt throw a fit and Chris tell him to just take a break and go chillax (Chris' new favorite word, Jess hated it). In plain: they wanted him to get the hell out of there. He didn't mind. It wasn't like he was doing any good cooped up in there today. So, he went out, not bothering to take a coat. Jess felt he didn't mind the cold, it numbed out the jittery feelings that had taken over his body. Sure, he would most likely get a mean cold from this, but he'd live. Jess walked down the street, steering his steps to a small kiosk that sold decent coffee and had a large spread of newspapers. He bought a cup of coffee and copy of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Most of the paper was dedicated either to Obama, McCain, the election or all three. Quickly flipping through the boring stuff, Jess found the Arts & Entertainment section, checking to see if any good books had surfaced.

As always, he was mildly disappointed, but then again, he'd always been picky. Heck, he didn't even like his own book, even after the fifth time they had to print more copies. The only thing that kept him from destroying the original manuscript and hunt down every person who owned a copy was that Rory had liked it. She had given him the most honest critique he was ever going to get. Sure, he had managed to make the papers, a small notice in the Inquirer that praised _The Subsect_, but Jess thought the notice was a heap of bullcrap. He could care less about what all those anonymous somebodies thought about his book. From the moment Rory had told him she loved his book, he decided it was enough. Never mind if he so made the New York Times bestseller list, Rory's words mattered more than anything else.

He began walking back, sipping the coffee slowly. It took him a bit longer to get back to Truncheon, some hobo decided to pester him about giving a dime, and they got into a rather long argument about it that ended with the hobo getting a quarter for crappy attitude.

"Hey man, you chil…" Chris began greeting him when Jess entered Truncheon.

"Chris, I swear to whatever God you believe in, if you say that word one more time, I'm going to side with Matt on that ridiculous bar-idea of his." Jess threatened his friend.

"No need to bite my head off, man, just asked."

Jess sighed. He was cranky, and he tried to ignore the little voice screaming_ "Congratulations, Captain Obvious!"_ at him in his head.

"Anything happen while I was gone?" he asked Chris instead.

"Something came for you." Chris said, giving him a smile that Jess could only construe as being meant to be secretive, but came out rather creepy.

"And?"

"It's in there." Chris replied, pointing toward some of the bookcases in the corner.

"You put my…" Jess asked incredulously and looked over to the bookcases. "What was it?"

"Go see for yourself."

Jess walked over to the bookcases with a puzzled expression on his face. He couldn't think of anything he'd ordered, and if this was a repetition of his birthday present he'd kick their sorry asses to New York. Matt and Chris had thought it was fun to hire a stripper for his birthday. Jess did not agree.

But what met him among the many bookcases that now invaded half of Truncheon was not a tacky stripper. It was so far from a tacky stripper one could get. Slumped down between two of the bookcases, reading a book with the most intense expression Jess had ever seen, was Rory. He felt exhilirated, and fought to keep his expression composed.

"Is it good?" he asked her.

She flinched, almost jumped at his words.

"Jess!" she yelled, all smiles and blue eyes.

"Wait, oh yeah, that was my hearing getting blown to kingdom come." he smirked.

"I see someone's not really over their teens."

She was still smiling at him, and Jess was fighting, this time to keep his thoughts coherent.

"You look tired. Do I need to kick someone's ass? Didn't the schmucks I work and live with offer you to wait upstairs. We actually have a sofa that's not all too crappy.

"I heard that!" Chris yelled at him from the counter.

"They did ask me, but… I wanted to look at the place now that there isn't an open bar with someone reciting some strange poem about Golda Meir."

"And you didn't get any further than the second row? I'm disappointed. I thought you'd be at least on the fifth row or something."

"Jess, come on. A shop full of books I probably can't find anywhere else? I have to check things thoroughly, and this one was good." she told him, and showed him the book she was reading.

"Good choice. Cammie's quite the eccentric, but she writes amazing stuff. We're actually waiting for her to bring in some fresh stuff for us to check out."

"And what about you mr. Writer? Anything new from you?"

"Officially? No."

"And unofficially?"

"Come on."

Jess led her down the stairs into the basement, obviously the place where they printed their books. She felt excited, like she was entering some sort of VIP-area. During the campaigntrail she'd had a couple of possbilities to ask Senator Obama a couple of questions, but the feeling she got in the pit of her stomach when they entered the basement was much, much stronger.

"Wait here." he told her, and she obediently stood still by one of the printers.

Jess disappeared into the dark, rummaging through something.

"You know, a lamp might help." she said into the darkness.

"Believe me, you do not want to see what it looks like down here." he answered. "Anyway, I know exactly where I'm supposed to look. See?" He was back beside her, holding a bunch of papers. He motioned for her to turn around so they could leave the basement. She turned, and they walked up the stairs from the basement.

"I'll show you the apartment upstairs, you'll have some peace and quiet, and Matt won't bust my ass for showing this."

"Sound like they have you on a leash." she joked.

"They wish." Jess smirked. "I feel like I have to keep them on a leash, or they'll go off doing God knows what. Matt is still trying to sell us the Cedar Bar Redux-idea, and Chris is just being perpetually annoying, but at least he's siding with me on the whole bar-thing."

They walked up another set of stairs, and at the top, Jess opened the door for her. The apartment was… well… typical for three guys living together. It was chaotic, but still, it was a sort of chaos that had some order to it. There were open spaces here and there, though not many, as most of the floor was cluttered with books, papers and an occasional pizzabox, and the livingroom was heavy with the smell of curry.

"Sorry for the chaos, we don't get around to cleaning that often." he apologized.

"No, I like it." she told him, and to her surprise she actually meant it.

* * *

She had been unsure about coming to Truncheon. When Jess wasn't there, she was thinking about leaving. She still would've kept her promise, she had been to Truncheon, she had said 'hi'. Just not to him. The guy manning the counter, she had a faint memory that his name was Chris, wouldn't have that. He insisted she waited, he offered her to let her in to the upstairs apartment and she could wait there, but she preferred the store. Stairs made it so much harder to escape in case she needed to leave in a hurry. So, she took refuge inbetween the bookshelves, tracing her fingers along the books, until she found the one written by Cammie. It was the kind of book her mother would find entertaining, and she cursed herself for not buying it straight away, that way she would have it whether or not her little get-together with Jess went well.

"Come on, sit down. I take it you haven't developed some illogical fear or distaste for sofas."

Jess saw how she flinched, before smiling at him and sitting down next to him in the sofa. Without much further ado, he handed her the manuscript to read. He kept it hidden in the basement because Matt and Chris would never think of searching for it there. God knows they had raided his room enough times in search for the manuscript so they'd have something to send out to prospective sponsors. He didn't get it, why did they have to use his manuscript, there were tons of other talented writers, poets and artists that would do just fine, but oh no. The guys could be pretty persistent when they wanted to, especially when he didn't want them to.

He sat there patiently while she flipped through his manuscript, watching her eyes scan the pages, her mouth flashing a smile every now and then, her brow furrowing. He was shamelessly eyeing her, and wanted to apologize to someone. She was intriguing, had always been, from the first time he saw her. Why had it been so hard for them… No, for him to make it work?

"How long have you been writing? You've come so far with this." Rory said, bringing him back from the land of speculations.

"I've been jotting down stuff every now and then for… some time. It's nothing really, I just needed to put it on paper. I'm not sure I'll let them publish it."

"Are you kidding me? This is great, Jess, and either you are way too humble or way too stupid to realize it."

"Any of those are possible, but I'd go with door number three, reasonable."

"I never said anything about door number three." Rory protested.

"Yeah, well, I took a sledgehammer and made a door." he retorted.

"Jess. Really, it's good. Finish it, please?"

He tried to look tough, like he was not giving in, but it was hard when she asked him like that. It was utterly unfair, she had an advantage over him, and he had… nothing.

"You really liked it?" he asked, settling for avoiding the subject of publishing.

"You really needed to ask? I like anything you write. There was this one paragraph, wait…" she said, beginning to flip through the pages until she found what she was looking for. "Here. _'It's the sweet torture of never knowing, like you're a kid on Christmas morning and they're taking away your gifts before you've even opened them. You could look, but never touch, and you don't understand why, but somehow you get the feeling it's for your own good. I chose to be that kid, to relinquish my gift for the good of everything else.'_ I liked that."

Jess could only nod. He tried looking at her, just to see if she had really missed the point. She was his Christmas present, the one they had first taken away from him, not for his own good, but for hers. Later he was the kid that declined his gift, because he realized they had been right to take her away from him the first time.

"I was sort of…" Jess began.

She looked at him, attentive, waiting for him to explain.

"_God, here goes nothing…"_ he thought, before continuing aloud. "I was thinking of you when I wrote that."

Her face went blank, like he'd dropped a bomb. And he had, but this time, he wouldn't run. He hoped to God neither would she.

"Not that it will help, but the whole… thing is sort of about you."

"I'm… your Christmas present?" she tried, unsure of what to say.

"All I ever wished for." Jess shrugged, trying not to sound like a complete sap.

"Why?" she asked. "I was awful to you."

"Yeah? You wanna compare notes?"

"Seriously Jess, I was not on my best behaviour, especially not last time I was here. Why would you write this book about me?"

"You know how I said it's been a work in progress? Yeah, well, it's been in progress since your last time here, actually." he answered, noticing how Rory squeezed her eyes shut at the mentioning of it. "I was frustrated. More like crazy, but anyway… I tried hating you, I really did, and if that makes me a bad person, then I understand it if you want to hate me, too. The point is… I couldn't. I was in my room, just flipping through things I was writing, looking for something to keep myself busy with, when my winamp started playing this completely random song…"

"Your winamp is random?"

"It's called shuffle-mode, Rory. Can I continue?"

She nodded, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"I didn't think much of it, just that winamp had some crazy fetish for Blink 182, and that I was gonna kick Chris' butt for putting Blink in there in the first place. Then came this line, and I don't know. It just all fell into place somehow. I opened a new document and wrote ten pages that night. Since then I've just been writing on and off when I've felt there's been something worth adding."

Rory nodded again, feeling a sense of deja vú. A line in a song. Like the song on the bus. _"Let me rest in pieces…" _she thought.

"What song was it?" she asked Jess.

"The Blink-song? It's called _'I miss you'_. Not halfbad, though I'm still a Metallica man at heart."

"Never heard of it. The song I mean. I think you established the fact that you like Metallica that day when you came down to the diner wearing that hideous shirt." she said, reminding him of his early Stars Hollow days.

"That was not a hideous shirt, and it brought out the colour of my eyes." he protested with a laugh.

"What was the line then that set you off?"

He had been wishing she wouldn't ask that. On the other hand, he only had himself to blame, he had opened his mouth and said way too much about the whole thing. Couldn't he just have made it up, said it came to him in a weird dream with bunnies involved? He hesitated before he slowly answered.

"_Will you come home and stop this pain tonight?_"

He could see it was not what she had expected.

"You hurt me by coming here that time, making me believe that you had fixed everything with… with Logan, but…" he told her, feeling some strange need to explain himself. "I just realized that night when I began writing this that it hurt more not having you here… at all."

She looked… dazed. If she had been surprised about the song and the line, then this beat it big time.

"Rory?" he asked cautiously. "Feeling okey there?"

"I…" she began. "I really want to leave, but… I can't."

"Okey, I seriously need to learn not to talk." Jess decided.

"No! No… You have every right to talk. I just… Are we broken?"

"I may be, in the head, but you? Not more than usual."

"Jess, be serious. Is it too late?"

"Too late for what? I know we may have had some sort of freaky connection, but not so freaky so that I could figure out your unfinished thoughts."

She took a deep breath.

"Did we break each other, our hearts..? Did we break them into pieces so small it's impossible to repair?"

Where did all this come from? Obviously, Jess thought, he wasn't the only one who had had time to think during the time that had passed since they last saw each other.

"Is that what you're afraid of?" he asked her. "Us being… broken?"

"Why else would we dance around in a ring taking turns in stepping on toes?"

He sighed.

"Rory… I don't know what to tell you, really. I think… I think we might have broken something. Not shattered anything, but something's defintitely broken. I can't really say what, which means I have no idea how we could fix it, but… I hope it's not unmendable."

"But…" she began. "If we don't know what it is, how could it be fixed?"

"You're asking me that? You're the one who went to Yale."

"I should've come with you."

"What? The time I came to your dorm? If there ever was a reason to have me committed that would've been your opportune moment." he told her, remembering all too well how crazed he had been that night.

"Logan never came over out of the blue and asked me to run away with him." Rory countered, as if that justified his actions.

"Logan asked you to marry him!"

"Like that would've been a life…" she muttered.

"More than I would've given you if you'd followed my insanity."

"I loved you for that insanity!"

"Exactly, Rory, loved! Past tense, end of not so rose-tinted story." he exclaimed.

"I hate past tense…"

* * *

It was no more than a whisper, but he heard it.

"You hate past tense?" he asked her.

"I hate having you in past tense." she clarified.

"You think this here, what we're doing now, looks like past tense?"

"No, but technically, you are past tense."

"Huh."

"You know, I had no problems putting Dean in my rearview mirror. I was more than happy to put Logan in it. But you, Jess… I keep seeing you in my rearview mirror, and I hate having you there."

Jess eyed her quietly. He had a faint idea of where this was leading, but he couldn't be completely sure. She seemed hesitant, squirming under his gaze.

"You're gonna make me say it, aren't you?" she asked him a couple of minutes later.

He shrugged his shoulders, figuring his best way out of this was to keep quiet. For now, at least.

"I want to love you, Jess." she said. "I really do."

He wanted to ask the natural follow up question, but couldn't muster up enough courage to face the answer.

"It's just…" she begun

Here it would come, his final death sentence, and then she would be gone, again.

"It's just…" she echoed, seemingly struggling to find the words.

"It's just what?" he asked, wanting to help her out of her misery.

"Nothing." she finally said. "I can't even come up with a reason why I wouldn't want to love you, why there would be a problem."

"And you have officially lost me here."

"I… love you. No want, no shouldn't, no might. Just… that."

And she immediately wanted to bolt. Down the stairs, out the door, and all the way back to the drafty motel where Rob would bore her to death with his jokes.

"Rory, that's… You're not gonna fix us with that."

"I thought you said you didn't know how to fix it." she said, feeling her heart sink.

"Yeah, that also means I know what won't fix it, and as much as I really love to hear those words coming out of your mouth, it won't fix this. We could tell each other we love each other 'til our ears fall off, but…"

"It won't fix us." Rory concluded, swallowing back the lump of tears.

"And you seem to know it just as well as I do." Jess replied, and smiled warmly at her.

Rory nodded quietly and got up from the sofa. If there ever was a cue to leave…

"Hey, where are you going?"

"This can't be fixed, so I'm gonna go before either of us gets hurt."

"You're giving up?" he asked her.

She couldn't answer him.

"I'm gonna sound so mean, but if you leave now, you're giving up. That was never you. It was me years back, but even I got over myself. See Rory, this has always been our problem," Jess said, and motioned to the space between them. "Either one of us is always leaving when they really should stay."

"What if I want to leave?" Rory asked him, sadness tinting her voice.

"What if I don't want you to?" Jess countered.

Silence. Jess was quiet because he wanted to see Rory's reaction. He had really meant what he said, he didn't want her to leave, because then she would be lost forever. Rory was quiet because she had no idea how to respond to Jess' statement. He didn't want her to leave. When did he become her, or she him? When had their roles switched? Did this mean she would get him into a car accident, and his wrist would get busted, and she'd sulk by a convieniently located bridge? Bridge. Basket. Ernest.

"I read _A Farewell to Arms_." she told him trying to break the silence.

"Really?" he asked her with an incredulous look.

"Yep. Cover to cover."

"And?" he asked, cocking his eyebrow.

"Ernest really needs to get better at sucking up to people, he wasn't lovely at all to me." she smiled.

And Jess laughed. They were back… to something. To a start, maybe, he could only hope. He got up from the sofa, and pulled Rory into a warm hug, that probably still smelled of yesterday's currydisaster (courtesy of Chris this time).

Rory felt like home in Jess' arms. Pulling a Hiro Nakamura would've been perfect now, but she knew it still wouldn't fix things.

"Jess?"

"Gilmore."

"I don't care that it doesn't fix anything, but… I still love you."

"I should care that you don't care, but right now… I don't care." he replied playfully.

"And..?"

"And what?"

"How 'bout some reciprocation here, Mariano?"

He pulled her temporarily out of the hug, giving her a mezmerising smile that made his eyes sparkle.

"Did you really have to ask?"

And then she was back in his embrace, and it was new. Something was new, she could only guess it was themselves. What they had had, what they had been… gone. _"Rest in pieces,"_ Rory thought, as she breathed in the familiar sent of somewhere to belong.

* * *

**A/N:** It turned out longer than I had intended, but these two... well... Considering they could go on dancing around each other forever, this is fairly acceptable, right? Review and rock my totally non-existing morning-perkiness! :p


End file.
